Haze
by Kalliel
Summary: Itachi's first night in ANBU. He's lying prone on the table, arms splayed out like those of a corpse, but he does not move. That's the first thing they tell you--don't. So Itachi doesn't. Because this is ANBU, and it does not matter who you are.


**Haze**  
_Naruto fan fiction_

**Genre:** horror, pre-series  
**Rating: **PG-13 for torture and implied gang rape  
**Characters: **Itachi, Shisui, and three others (guess who?)  
**Word Count:** 1000 or so  
**Warnings:** Aforementioned tortue and gang rape. It is not glorified, but is possibly triggering.  
**Summary:** Itachi's first night in ANBU, as his sworn loyalty is branded into his arm. (He doesn't move. Because in ANBU, it doesn't matter who you are.)

* * *

Table's edge. Razor blade. Fire under water.

It's Uchiha Shisui who marks him, Itachi knows. It's familiar, that smelter's fire, blistering with kiln heat and bitter with the tang of white-hot steel. Uchiha Shisui pulls the tool from the flame and water spills from his hands. Steam billows up. He turns, circles the table, and leaves Itachi's line of sight.

Itachi doesn't move. He's lying prone on the table, arms splayed out like those of a corpse, but he does not move. That is the first thing they tell you--_don't_.

So Itachi doesn't. Because this is ANBU, and it does not matter who you are.

It is not truly Uchiha Shisui standing with a blade at his back. It is not his cousin that clamps one iron hand over his tricep and draws the razor blade ever closer with the other. It is only a mask, porcelain and beaded with steam-wet. Itachi closes his mind to the idea that it was ever anything, or anyone, else.

The pain is exquisite. No shinobi is a stranger to a razor's edge, but this, Itachi thinks, this is poison. The blade rounds its first curve and Itachi feels as though his shoulder is being carved out. A warm wetness slips down his arm tantalizingly slow and he doesn't know how much of it is blood and how much is ink (red and black). He doesn't care. He doesn't think. The brand will scar over soon enough (what was the point of the fire, if not to cauterize the wound? because it is bleeding, bleeding), trap the black ink inside. It's not so much an emblem of power as it is a reminder: Forget yourself.

Because this is ANBU. You are a body and a soldier and you should never presume to be anything more. Itachi is familiar with the lesson. More or less.

It's hard to breathe, lungs pressed flat against the table's surface. Hard to breathe when you're trying not to move, but your lungs expand and your body rises up and the blade dives just a little deeper than it should have. It's an ill omen, if the ink bleeds. Faithlessness, it means, if the lines are blurred and the ink spreads like poison just wherever it pleases.

Luckily, the ink kills, if it does that. Nobody betrays ANBU. Nothing.

A hand, dry, calloused, slips between Itachi's chin and the unrefined grain of the tabletop and wraps over his mouth. _Don't move._ Itachi coughs, a drowning reflex. A hand's dry, calloused fingers are shoved into his mouth, the blade jumps deeper than it should, the mask (cousin no longer) swears, and Itachi bites down hard--but keeps still, this time.

There's a long way to go. Itachi's mind goes the way of the blade and spirals inward.

It's not as though though there's any reason for all of this, there's no reason no reason

.

.

.

no reason at all, only a message and even then a message everyone knows. you are not your own, everyone knows. everyone knows but someone doesn't play like that, someone's pulling the strings, right? someone's playing god or

maybe no one is no one at all Has anyone considered that? it's all just chaos and the world is spinning spinning out of control

wouldn't that be brilliant? or perhaps not. it's not something to be questioned. things happen, when something like that is questioned. it is not a pleasant thing

_this is not a pleasant thing_

.

.

.

--"This is why I disapproved." There are fingers at Itachi's temples, probing as though searching. _Too young_; Itachi catches only snatches past that one key phrase. The full scent of flowers, carnation and primrose, is overpowering.

--"Nothing is too young." Bitterness laces the words, but it's steel and smoke, and not so much regret. Rough wetness on Itachi's arm. Tasting. Drawing downward, serpentine. Itachi hears a smack as the speaker swallows poison. Then, a sibilant whisper at his ear, words he doesn't understand. Awkward pause. Exhalation. A slap to his back, almost tentative, as if an afterthought.

--The calloused fingers, in his mouth still (waiting patiently), worm their way out. Scars on his knuckles to match the ones across his face. It's the former, the whispering snaking one, who makes the comment, then laughs; and what Itachi hears then is more like a woman and less like a snake. No one else follows suit.

They don't understand the levity of the situation. Because this, truly, is laughable.

Uchiha Itachi is thirteen years old. His lips are dry and catching splinters, there's a line of bruising where his thighs fold down over the table. Of his ribs, the same is likely true, with the way he was held down. His toes just brush the floor, dangling like a hanged man's. His arm, he isn't even sure is still attached. It's burning, burning, dizzyingly so, but Itachi knows that a thing doesn't need to be all there

to feel that pain.

The mask leaves the room then, slips away with fluid efficiency. Itachi hears a gasp for air and a sigh of relief, but perhaps these are imagined, only. Those are things a cousin might do. ANBU has no reason for a response so trivial. And ANBU has no care for what is to come, though the voices and hands and scents that remain in the room do. They do. Torturers, interrogators, revelers all.

"There is no turning back."

Of course. There never is.

"After this night, you will leave this all behind."

Repetitious.

"This is the last time you will ever feel so helpless, so weak." You are a body and a soldier and you will die long before you ever have a chance to feel. If you are lucky, you'll have forgotten how.

"Remember this night."

His sleeve is rolled down over the mess of his arm.

.

.

It's over.

.

.

Finally over.

.

.

.

But Itachi can feel an unfamiliar tension in the air (still, windless, like the breath is leaking out of a dead thing, so slowly it can't be felt) and hands at his hips and he thinks--

--Maybe it isn't.

There is no going back. Everything changes. You, the world. The spaces and faces in between. Itachi tenses--_Don't move_--and he feels his clothes being flayed off. A second skin is worth precious little if every cut and peel hurts just as much as dying.

The last thing Itachi thinks, before shutting out all reason: It makes one thing easier, at least. There's nothing to go back to.

The mask outside is no cousin of his.

* * *

.

.

.

_end._

20 October 2009

Constructive criticism is adored!


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